another lazy sunday

These past few days a friend of mine from high school came to visit. Years ago when she lived in London she had a Basset named Fred whom we met on a visit, and loved so much it made us seek out a Basset for ourselves. Fred has since passed on, but is not forgotten.
My friend now lives on the other side of the planet, and has another dog (not a Basset, sadly), but remains a Basset lover. Molly and Toula worshipped the ground she walked on while she was here, as she brought with her a bag of Three Dog Bakery treats! Now, THAT's a true friend! Barooh!

We took her and the lowdogs to the beach where we all had a terrible time and hated the weather. In fact, we wished it was snowing and we were all stuck inside with the flu.

Just checking to see if you're still reading.

Life sucks (Molly chasing Big D at the shoreline):Actually, what did suck was that it was high tide and there was a lot of seaweed on the shore. With seaweed comes kelp flies and we had to swat them away. It was very difficult and we were forced to go home, drink mimosas, and feed Three Dog Bakery treats to the bassets to recover from the trauma. Oh, how we keep surviving this I'll never know.

(BTW, Molly's itchy foot problem is subsiding thanks to a slight change in the weather, and regular doses of Benadryl.)

Here are 4 seconds of basset-y goodness, with the voice of Big D in the background. Isn't life grand?

home remedy

Big D has decided that the best way to treat Miss Molly lowdog's predilection toward chewing on her foot is to (a) spread some hydrocortisone cream on it, (b) spray it with bitter apple so the cream isn't tasty and (c) stick a sock on it. She went to bed like this last night.

Sadly, the sock, which is one of his designated work socks, tasted remarkably like Big D, which made it a sort of Daddylicious Smorgasbord of foot sweat, apple, and creamy hydrocortisony butter. MMMmmm, that's good sock stank.

So, suffice it to say that although she promptly went to sleep like this last night, we woke up this morning to Molly sucking her foot again, and a discarded, rather wet, dog-saliva soaked sock.

Sigh. I'm dialing the vet as soon as they open....

bunny sighting

This weekend Toula discovered the joys of being a Basset Hound can include spotting prey in the wild and .... staring at it. And when I say "prey" I mean a little bitty bunny rabbit (note circled bun-bun and teensy white cotton tail). And, when I say "in the wild" I mean the neighbor's yard. Oh, the drama.

This pic, taken from my Treo phone and therefore showing all the hallmarks of a crappy shot taken quickly with the subject of the photo escaping into the shrubbery (Pulitzer prize attempt lost again), occurred at the exact moment that Toula turned into a pillar of concrete. She literally froze and would not move. All the Dog Whispering "SHHTZS!" and pokes to her neck, were unsuccessful, as were the subsequent chain-yanking, hollerings of "OY! TOULA! LOOKIT ME!". Nothing would get that dog to draw away her attention.

Mind you, when she's in the house (read: AIR CONDITIONING) and a bun-bun is in our yard eating my plants and pooping in vast quantities she can't be bothered to even wink at the thing. I think I need to sit her down and re-visit the How To Be A Basset Hound manual, Chapters 1-3 again. And, there will definitely be a pop quiz at the end.

clean toys!

Clean toys!, originally uploaded by JolieVoice.

It's cleaning day, which means we sew up all the holes in the dog toys and toss them in the washer on LAVA HOT setting to get them clean. Mind you, getting the toys clean is usually a futile effort because someone invariably ends up doing something that circumvents my cleaning. Like this:

Sleeping in the flippin' dirt! She sleeps in soil, then walks back into the house, hops on the sofa, and deposits all the dirt in the crevices of the sofa! AAAAGGHH! kill me now. That's it, I'm getting a maid!

Sigh. I'm just cranky because Molly kept me up all last night chewing on her paw and scratching. She's allergic to the environment (trees, pollens, grasses, weeds, etc. Pretty much everything outdoors), and once in a while she is really impacted by it. Benadryl isn't doing a lot right now, so we're keeping an eye on her. I hope I don't have to start injecting her again...